Fostering cross‐sectorial cooperation: The role of GIS in elucidating biological influences on intertidal areas within the land ocean interaction study

The Biological Influences On inter‐Tidal Areas (BIOTA) project is part of the Natural Environment Research Council's Land Ocean Interaction Study (LOIS). LOIS is a 6‐year program to quantify the exchange, transformation, and storage of materials between the land and the deep ocean and to determine how these parameters change in time and space. Scientific research within the BIOTA program concentrates on the intertidal zone but must also address influences from both land‐ and sea‐based phenomena.

Models and data from a wide variety of disciplines have been integrated within a developing GIS‐based spatial decision support system (DSS). While the system is designed primarily to stimulate scientific cooperation and information exchange between researchers, it also provides secure and convenient access to a wide variety of data and models and will provide an aid for effective coastal management. The use of the system in fostering cooperation among researchers is illustrated with reference to a saltmarsh sediment model, where links to conservation biology, climate change, economics, and land use change have been simulated.

Keywords:

• coastal management
• cross‐sectoral studies
• material flux
• spatial decision support systems